This invention relates generally to multi-purpose gowns. More particularly, this invention relates to multi-purpose gowns having releasably fastenable portions that allow efficient access to selected portions of a person's anatomy, while minimizing the person's bodily exposure.
Medical gowns are frequently worn by patients undergoing certain medical procedures. In many common medical procedures, such as mammography, echocardiography and ultrasonography, it is necessary for the physician or medical technician to have direct access to specific portions of a patient's anatomy. Many conventional medical gowns do not allow convenient access to the pertinent body regions. Hence, it is frequently necessary for the patient to uncover large portions of the body in order to provide access to relatively small portions of the body. Such maneuvering of the medical gown may also impede the medical examination. Additionally, a patient may suffer embarrassment from being partially unclothed, and discomfort from being exposed to the cool-air of an examination room.
In order to overcome these disadvantages, medical gowns have been developed that allow access to specific body regions while attempting to minimize the patient's exposure. Some medical gowns utilize releasably fastenable flaps that cover only select areas of a patient's anatomy, such as the chest or the abdomen regions. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,097,536 and 5,133,086 exemplify such gowns. These gowns allow the medical examiner to open the gown to expose selected body portions, thereby facilitating the examination.
However, current medical examination gowns preclude a wide range of uses and are often inefficient. For example, with respect to an examination of the breasts and upper chest region, prior art gowns do not allow convenient and efficient simultaneous, unencumbered access to the front shoulder, breast and side torso regions of a patient. Also, such gowns are not typically designed to provide for concurrent or alternative abdominal examination.
Additionally, some current medical examination gowns are structurally unstable during use. Such gowns fail to effectively distribute the weight of the gown when the flaps are in their "open" positions. This may cause the gown to gape or awkwardly hang about the patient, oftentimes interfering with the medical examination. Further, the weight of the gown is sometimes carried against the patient's neck, thereby causing a garroting type of discomfort. Also, the gown may completely fall away from the patient during the examination, causing embarrassment and discomfort.
Therefore, it is desired to provide a gown that is amenable to a multiplicity of uses, such as a medical gown, and that provides convenient access to any one of numerous selected portions of the patient's anatomy. Such a gown would allow access to the entire front shoulders, chest and abdomen, as well the side torso regions. Further, such a gown would be structurally stable during an examination while minimizing the patient's exposure.